first snow and clementines

We awoke to a winter wonderland this morning (as you can see by this photo I snapped with my phone this morning, there wasn't a lot on the ground).  I was sort of surprised by it but not as surprised at the dogs were.  As we were falling asleep last night, I could hear the beginning of freezing rain.  I hate freezing rain.  I fear ice in a big way.  I've often said that I don't fear death but I do fear falling on the ice and breaking a bone.  Big time.

Fortunately, through the night at some point, it had snowed.  Snow is my friend in the middle of an ice storm because it makes traction.  I'm less likely to fall ass over elbow with some snow on the ground!  It was actually quite beautiful in the backyard.  There were snow covered ice drips everywhere and it was raining when I let the dogs out.  Gracie was keen to go out but looked at me with a glare that said, "um, hello! Can't you do something about that?"  I knocked the layer of ice off of the doggie door for her and in the end she went out but she wasn't pleased about it.  Well, not the first time anyway.  When she realized that going out in the snow/rain meant getting rubbed with a fluffy towel everytime she came in, it became a bit of a game all morning.

I'm not exactly sad to see the snow (althought it's almost gone now).  I'm hoping that the mini freeze we experienced will help kill some of the nasty germs that are floating around.  Mark is just getting over a doozy of a cold which I've been able to so far (touch wood) avoid - for the most part.  The particular version of the cold he had started with an ache in his neck and stayed in his head.  He had a horrible cough and I've never in all of my life seen someone produce so much mucous.  Every night for 2 weeks he was up in the night, coughing up goo.  I didn't want that.  I was afraid that if I did, I'd end up with bronchitis again (which is what normally happens to me when I have a cold.

So far, lots of hand washing and extra doses of citrus fruit seem to be working for me.  Admittedly, yesterday, I felt really crappy all day.  I had a headache and was generally miserable and really thought I'd wake up this morning sick.  Lucky for me, I didn't. I just don't want to get sick.  No one ever does, I know, but things are really busy right now and I don't want to have to slow down for a cold.

Now, with any luck, I won't turn into a clementine orange.  How many do you have to actually eat before that happens anyway?

how early is too early

American thanksgiving is happening later this week and that always seems to signal the official start of the holiday season for our neighbours south of the border. For Canadians though, it's less strict, or at least it seems that way. Officially or unofficially, when is it too early to put your holiday decorations at home?

I know that some stores (Dollarama, I'm looking at you), had their Christmas stuff out when the Halloween decorations were still on the shelves. Home is different though, I can't figure out what the deal should be, probably because we never put our stuff up at the same time each year.

My feeling about it is, if the city has had it's Santa Claus parade, you're cool to start putting up your decorations, if you're so inclined. That's my unofficial signal anyway. In our town, the big parade happened this past Saturday evening. Where my folks live (just west of here), their parade was 2 weeks ago. I wouldn't think that the post-Santa Claus Parade "rule" would apply to them though, because their parade is before Rememberance Day.

Tricky huh? I read a bit about that this year too, about not starting into the Christmas celebrating until after November 11 - not an entirely bad idea if you ask me. We broke down and put up our outside lights yesterday. Not because it was the day after the Santa Claus Parade but more because it was around 15 degrees celsius in the sunshine here yesterday. On November 20, we put up Christmas lights in short sleeve tshirts and flip flops.

We're not the first folks in our neighbourhood to take advantage of the warm weather for decorating purposes. Over Thanksgiving weekend, when the temperatures soared to the mid-20's, a house around the corner from here well whole hog and hooked up (and actually turned on) their inflatable Christmas city. At that point, we hadn't even finished putting up our Halloween decorations. Maybe we were a little slack but I think that they were a smidgen keen with the helicopter Santa on their roof.

Maybe this year, I'm questioning the whole thing because the weather around here doesn't feel very wintery or christmassy, regardless of what the calendar says. Don't get me wrong though, I'm loving this weather and would happily give up shovelling this winter if I had to. I'm just not feeling the urge to pull out my Holiday Music Playlist quite yet.

Admittedly, the thing I like the most about Christmas is the lights. I wish we lived somewhere where it was cool have your whole house, covered in lights, all year long. We have strings of lights on our deck all year, partly because it lights up the yard for our dogs in the evenings and partly because both of us love them. This love of lights is also why, as soon as we tacked up the lights on the front of the house, I plugged them into a timer. Last night when they came on at dusk, I kept peeking out through the living room curtains to see them. They're very pretty!

So long Blissdom, Hello Florida!

Blissdom Canada Cards
Originally uploaded by Julep67

Last week, I wrote a post about my goals for the upcoming Blissdom Canada conference I was getting ready to attend. When I was writing my post, I was quite nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect or if I’d fit in anywhere, given how spotty my blogging has been over the past few years. On Friday morning, upon arriving at the Toronto Hilton to register, the nerves disappeared and I jumped in with two feet.

Following the advice of those who’d gone before me, I introduced myself to as many people as I could and I handed out the neat little cards which had arrived just-in-time from Mabel's Labels. With the exception of one "commerce track" session, I attended all "arts track" sessions and absorbed a lot of information. Not everything I heard applied to me but I took some good notes and will be looking through them probably over the weekend. The collection of business cards I acquired also needs to be reviewed.

Overall, I’d say that I really got a lot out of the sessions and very much enjoyed meeting so many wonderful people. The whole weekend was very organized and I was impressed with how everything kept on schedule. The only blip in the whole weekend for me was the registration on Thursday afternoon. In the generated schedule I printed from the website, it indicated that registration was open until 7 p.m. I didn’t get checked into my hotel until 5:30 p.m. and by the time I got over to the Hilton to register it was around 6:30 p.m. and I'd missed them. I was pretty disappointed but was also pretty pooped (I'd been up at 4:30 a.m. as per usual that morning) so I took my sad butt back to the King Eddy, grabbed a sandwich at Tim Horton's, threw on a Marc Maron podcast and had an early night.

There were things which surprised me about the weekend and some that didn't. I was surprised by some of the elaborate booths/display areas that the very generous sponsors had. I wasn't surprised that a lot of what they were promoting didn't interest me (not being a "mommy blogger" I don't have a lot of need for toys or diapers – but I took them all the same and will be donating them). Being able to have a professional headshot done was a wonderful surprise and I’m very grateful to Corel for that. The biggest surprise of the weekend happened when we were about 20 minutes outside of Kingston. I noticed a tweet that said I'd won a trip to Florida courtesy of Chevrolet Canada and Visit Orlando. At first I didn't think it was true but I was in touch with them this morning and it is true. Over the next few days I think I will get all of the details about the prize. I am pretty excited about it if I'm honest.

At the moment, I feel like I'm still processing the weekend and I suspect that I'll have more to say about it in the coming days.

Twas the night before Blissdom Canada

It's been a bit of a whirlwind around here over the past few weeks. Sitting down right now, with a few minutes to reflect upon the last little while (while I wait for the washing machine to finish spinning) I can't even really pinpoint anything specific we did. There wasn't anything new or weird or strange or different going on, just more of the usual stuff I guess.

Work is very busy right now. It's been busy all year though. Ordinarily, during July and August, it slows down a bit but this year I didn`t notice that happening. When September hit, and things really ramped up around the office, part of me didn't feel very organized. If I'm honest, I still feel that way but after today, it feels much better than it did yesterday. I didn't realize how much I had missed not having a couple of weeks over the summer to get my head together and sort myself before the busy time hit us!

Recently, I was offered a second job. It isn't even a part-time job. It's more a quarterly thing. I'll be doing some proof reading for a magazine which is published quarterly. I've done some transcription for the editor in the past and really love working with him, he's awesome. Last week, I was expecting to get a few pages to start on and see how things go. The pages didn't arrive until yesterday and, what with trying to get ready to head out of town for a few days, I felt a little panicked about that too. One section is due tomorrow. I think I have it completed correctly. The rest of it will have to wait a few days until I'm back from my conference. I feel super accomplished to have gotten through the past couple of days in the office in addition to proofing pages in the evening. Oh, and it's a short work week!

So, the conference. When I wrote about it last month, I had every good intention of writing here more regularly. As you can see, that didn't happen. What did happen, in admidst the whirlwind, was I started to connect with some of the attendees via twitter. What a treat that has been. I haven't had a lot of time to spend on twitter but at least I feel like I know a little bit about some of the women who are attending.

I've learned a few things from already:

1. they are just as nervous about it as I am!
2. some of them are newbies to this as well!
3. everyone is super excited (me included)!

I'm still feeling like a bit of a poseur. I read a little post on the CBC website which referred to attendees as professionals. I'm not a professional at this by any definition but hopefully I can fake it for a couple of days!!

I have a little pile of stuff sitting in my office waiting to be packed up. Power cords, USB cables, gadets, print offs for stuff I'm attending, hotel confirmation... it's getting kind of big. I haven't actually sat down and made a list yet of what I need to bring with me but I guess that will happen when the laundry is in the dryer.

As far as clothes go, I have no idea what to bring. I want to be comfortable during the day but I'm not staying at the hotel where the conference is so I also want to be dressed appropriately for the evening events I'm going to. There is a big "red carpet" party tomorrow night which I am not yet certain I'll get to. My train doesn't get in until quite late in the afternoon. By the time I get to my hotel, check in and settle in a bit, I may not be able to get my registration stuff. I also realized that I probably didn't order enough "business" cards but I'll make due with what I have.

The small stuff shall not be sweated by me this weekend. My goals for the weekend are pretty simple:

1. have fun!
2. introduce myself to as many people as I can
3. get inspired to write here more often and not just stuff, but more interesting stuff.

Wow. I feel much better after having dumped that all out. Now, to get the laundry into the dryer and start on that to do list!!

Jamey Rodemeyer and Troy Davis

I'm a bit pissed and really sad today. It's about two things:

1. I do not support the death penalty.

I was beyond sad this morning to awake to the news that the State of Georgia had killed Troy Davis, an innocent man. When we went to bed last night, we heard that his execution had been delayed "1 to 7 days" so we went to sleep, never thinking that they would actually kill last night. It's heartbreaking, for his family and supporters. Also, I think that the family of Mark MacPhail have not received justice because whoever murdered Officer MacPhail is still walking around free. Americans, you have to lose the death penalty. Your justice system gets it wrong too often for this to be a practical penalty - nevermind that killing people is just too messed up for words.

2. Mean people suck.

Yesterday I heard about Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14 year old boy who killed himself because of bullying. I hate that kids don't have any perspective.

Perspective comes with age and experience. I wish that kids like Jamey could understand that bullies are assholes. From what I have read about him and from what I saw in his "it gets better" video, he was a great kid with a lot to offer. I'm deeply saddened for him and his family that on Sunday, he decided that it wouldn't get any better for him. If only Jamey could have realized that his life would have been fabulous and that he was capable of all kinds of awesome things, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself.

Some days I think that overall, humans don't care enough about each other. Why is that? What's wrong with us?